and to that monstrous fire that destroyed a great american boardwalk. This evening, the blaze still smoldering. More than 24 hours later. That fire, on the new jersey shore, labeled suspicious now, as investigators look for a cause. 30 shops, which spent months and millions of dollars rebuilding after hurricane sandy, gone. Just look at what's left tonight. New jersey's governor chris christie saying the fire finished the job that sandy started. Abc's gio benitez reporting in from the jersey shore tonight. Reporter: For many in this community, seeing the devastation up close was almost too much to bear. A day after watching childhood memories go up in flames. What are you thinking, when you're looking at that? Atching lots of memories wiped out in ashes. Reporter: Tonight, sources tell abc news, investigators are treating this fire as suspicious. For now. The first priority is to let the criminal investigators go in there and arson inspectors and do their work to make sure we can determine, as best we can, what the cause of the fire was. Reporter: The fire started at a custard shop at the funtown pier, 30-mile-per-hour winds pushed the flames north into seaside heights. 30 buildings destroyed. Firefighters broke through this boardwalk to stop the flames. It's where last year, that roller coaster ended up in the bay, following superstorm sandy. It took months of work and $8 million to rebuild this boardwalk, only to see it destroyed for a second time. This is a knockout punch. This is devastating. Reporter: Governor chris christie showed prince harry the rebuilt boardwalk back in may. Today, christie was back, consoling the heartbroken and thanking the 400 firefighters who put the fire out. And gio with us live from new jersey. Just unbelievable what so many there in jersey have been through, families rebuilding. That's the boardwalk behind you, gio, that had been rebuilt before this? Reporter: That's right, david. This is it. And we're told there are still hot spots in that rubble. Investigators trying to figure out how this started. All right, gio, thank you.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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